grateful thanks for your great
kindness to my poor boy. Yours truly, Woodman.

Now, I can truthfully say, that this letter paid me well for the great
risk I had run, as it gave me great pleasure. Some time after, the
'Janet' returned to Hull, and I went on board to see if I could find the
youth, but the bird had flown, for the captain told me he had run away
from his ship, and that he had no idea where he was. The captain was
glad to see me and wanted me to have a glass of grog, but I refused,
having become, a short time before, a pledged abstainer from all
intoxicating drinks.

_Thirty-eighth._--ANN MARTIN.* (1860.)

While the Humber Dock gate was being closed, this woman, who was
forty-eight years of age, came up to the bridge, and refusing to wait
until the proper time for passing, she attempted to step from one half
of the bridge to the other, and in making the attempt, she fell, head
first, into the water below. It was high tide at the time, and she was
rapidly carried away by the stream. The night was dark and I was very
ill, but when I heard that a woman was overboard, I ran to the spot; but
alas! I could not see her, and for a moment I thought there was no
chance of saving her. But knowing that assistance must be immediately
rendered or the woman would be out of sight, and beyond the reach of
help, I plunged into the water and soon brought her to the bridge. They
let down a boat hook to which we both clung, and then a ladder, up which
to ascend. But I told them I would rather have a boat, which was soon
brought and we were landed in safety. While clinging to the hook, the
woman, as might be expected, was full of alarm, but I knew she was safe
enough, so to allay her fears, and wile away a few moments of painful,
but unavoidable waiting, I jocosely said to her, 'Hold fast now, Missus.
You are as safe now as though you were watching the pot boil over.' She
afterwards told me that the most pleasant sensation she ever experienced
in her life, was at the moment when she felt some one had hold of her in
the water. This woman has manifested the liveliest gratitude for what I
did for her, and she never crosses the bridge without calling at my
house to enquire after me, and she often says, to my good wife, 'You
know I aint right if I don't see the master about.' She was very poor at
the time I saved her, but on the following Christmas she brought me a
_duck_ for my dinner. I refused to take it, for I knew she c